The foreign ships brought such goods as silk, textiles, perfumes, eyeglasses, clocks, and medical equipment. The people of Edo were keenly interested in these goods and valued them highly. One example of this was gold-patterned leather shipped in from the Netherlands, known in Japan as kinkarakawa ("gold leaf-patterned leather"), which was used to decorate walls and furniture in Europe. This leather was covered with gold -alloy leaf, embossed with the shapes of plants and other patterns, and then painted with additional colors. The residents of Edo cherished this "gold leather" and used it to make accessories - such as tobacco pouches and pipes - which tend to reflect a person's taste and eye for fashion. Over time, a method was developed of imitating this gold-patterned leather using paper, and the paper was exported to Europe. Edo residents had the resourcefulness to integrate the artifacts of other countries into their own culture and then create new applications and develop them further.

In much the same way, there is a craft that was originally brought to Japan in the Edo period and later became so refined as to be considered a traditional art. Edo kiriko is a glass craft that involves cutting patterns into the surface of the glass, and this style of glass making has been passed down in Tokyo since the nineteenth century. Kiriko originally referred to rectangular objects with the corners cut off, but the term later came to denote glass worked with cuttings on the surface. Minute patterns of hailstones, leaves, latticework, spider webs, and other motifs accurately engraved in the glass create a solemn brilliance. Kiriko plates and glasses truly provide a glimpse into Edo mode.

The glass craft that came to Japan through Nagasaki in the Edo period was originally called biidoro (from Portugese vidro, "glass") or giyaman (from Dutch diamant, "diamond") and was revered by the Japanese at the time. The craft soon made its way from Nagasaki to Osaka and then on to Edo, where production began in the middle of the Edo period. A renowned glass wholesaler called Kagaya opened in the Nihonbashi district of Edo in 1773, and a manager there named Bunjiro is believed to have created kiriko in the mid-nineteenth century. A a printed handbill from Kagaya near the end of the Edo period reveals that kiriko was already being used in such typical Japanese products as tiered food boxes and stationery goods. Additionally, the equally famed Satsuma kiriko was developed when a Kagaya artisan traveled to Satsuma at the behest of the Shimazu domain.

Biidoro and giyaman came to Japan from overseas, and Edo kiriko was created as an imitation of the European glasswork that so impressed Japanese at the time. But the methods and techniques of Edo kiriko have continued to develop, and it is now considered a traditional craft in its own right. In present-day Tokyo people can come across vestiges of the intercultural exchanges of the Edo period. If you look closely enough, you may be able to hear echoes of foreign words from ages long ago.